55 thoughts on “Are you an introvert or an extrovert?”

(And, as an interesting anecdote, I had to take the Myers-Briggs test as a high school freshman where I was hailed as the counseling office’s first known instance of an “ambivert”: which means that my test score placed me exactly in the middle of the Extrovert-Introvert spectrum. However, I’ve become more introverted as I’ve gotten older.)

I would say introvert. I recharge by quietly reading a book or going on a walk. As I got older and overcame some shyness, I learned to be extroverted, but my natural tendencies are definitely introverted. 🙂

Last time I took a Meyers-Briggs test a few years ago it scored me as ISFJ, but when I took the same test again today it gave me ESFJ (though it did say it was a “weakly expressed E”). I think that I am generally an extrovert in that I like being around people and I like talking with them. I love hosting people in my home and getting together with friends. One thing I miss about being married is having someone to hang out with all the time. I don’t like being alone.

But, I don’t think that I’ve ever felt like an extrovert because I have sensory issues and I get overwhelmed by large crowds and noisy situations. I also hate being the center of attention and I hate being in charge of stuff. But, once I get to know a small group of people and am comfortable in a situation, my extroversion comes out.

My husband and I are friendly and mildly social introverts and our oldest two are introverts. The youngest two seem needy and I am hoping they outgrow that and turn into introverts. It is truly tiring to have to push myself interact with them enough. My oldest outgrew that neediness of her baby and toddler years. My third is 8 and has discovered reading so she is finally taking some time alone to read.

I’m an introvert. (INTP – also known as the scatterbrained mad scientiest or absent-minded professor) But like Petra, I’m outgoing and talkative, at least as long as the subject is substantive. I don’t really enjoy small talk.

I must be in Angie’s ward. I’m a textbook introvert. I like people and being around them but after social events I have to lie down in a dark room and be alone for a long time. Small talk terrifies me. I would die if I had to be a used car salesperson.

People who don’t know me think I’m an extrovert. I’m not shy, I’m friendly, I reach out and engage people.

BUT, I prefer my own company 99% of the time. I hate parties (although a lot of people will say I’ve been the life of the party, I’m SO not having fun); I hate meetings; I hate socializing, period.

I need silence and solitude as I need air to breathe.

So I don’t know what I am.

A funny story, sort of off the subject: I went to an 80th birthday party for a friend who I love, but the party was a duty. I dreaded it. I went with another friend. We were early and as the room filled up, I made sure everyone saw us and we hugged people, then I told my friend, hurry, let’s sneak out while there are a lot of people here.

I pointed out another friend, who’d come after us, who was visiting, and said “it’s our turn, let’s go.”

Well, my social butterfly of a companion had to visit a minute and my other friend snuck out ahead of us! I told her “that is totally against the rules of parties.”

I finally dragged my companion out of there, but I was so annoyed.

I seldom answer my home phone and now that I have texting and email on my cell phone, NEVER answer it. In fact, I have all alerts turned off. I tell people to text me.

Again, however, I appear to be the most extroverted person in the room. Not. It’s a nervous kind of caretaking.

So how in heaven’s name did I ever become a lawyer? When people ask me how I arrived in my current career I tell them I basically “careened into it.”

My wife’s family is one of those big, fat, Mormon affairs whose motto is “Family closeness by desire if possible, by regimentation if necessary.” Talking with one or two of them is all right, but after about an hour hanging with the whole pack I need to find a dark room somewhere and take some deep breaths. Of course, this is the same family that prides itself in any public setting as being “louder than the drunks.”

I’m friendly and not at all shy, but large social situations just suck the life right out of me.

Like blogging, computer gaming is another premium drug of choice for Introverts everywhere. Thus kudos to whoever puts up those wonderful images from Dragon Age / Mass Effect at the top of the ZD page.

in real life face to face situations i am a textbook extrovert. i have a fairly intense energy, i’m completley ok with attention, i love parties and i genuinely enjoy socializing.

however my entire life i have wondered what it would be like to be an observer. an introvert. perhaps a little shy, more demure etc.

so i get to play that role of intovert in the bloggernacle! i freaking love it – just sittin back quietly taking it all in. i finally get to watch the cool kids play from afar and think about their interactions, personalities and opinions.

I’ve always considered myself to be more of an introvert, but the older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve found that I enjoy all kinds of random interactions, like small talk even. I still prefer smaller groups and one-on-one interactions to large groups. And I still compulsively replay discussions in my head if (inevitably) I said something stupid in the course of them. But I’m not quite as overwhelmed by people as I was as a teenager, for example.

I just read something that said people fall into a bell curve on all four scales, so that the most likely place to fall is in the middle, rather than at the ends, as the classification scheme would have us believe. Then the test splits these curves down the middle to assign people to their supposed groups. That process doesn’t strike me as having any validity, so my whole faith in the test, and its ability to tell me anything about who I am, is undermined.

And then I would also like to propose that these tendencies are habits that can be developed or taught, in whatever direction we choose. I don’t know where I’m going with this. Maybe just away from the idea that we are fixed entities whose traits are inborn and unchangeable?

I just read something that said people fall into a bell curve on all four scales, so that the most likely place to fall is in the middle, rather than at the ends, as the classification scheme would have us believe.

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I want to shine like a candle. I want to be good, to follow instructions, to do what Jesus bids. I want to believe you should love your neighbors as yourself and the Kingdom of God is within you. But all of this seems less and less possible.